Betsy's blog

Mark your fall calendar for the next big kayak angling tournament for Southwest Florida – the Calusa Blueway Paddling Festival Fishing Tournament.

Forget the Fourth. Let Labor Day plans go. Now is the time to focus on a one-of-a-kind costume ball that will highlight this fall’s Calusa Blueway Paddling Festival. We’re talking conquistadors and queens, dukes and duchesses, Calusa Indians and pirates. Even sea wenches are welcome.

The Calusa Costume Ball will kick off the second weekend of the festival, which runs Oct. 23-Nov. 1 along the waterways of the Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel in Southwest Florida. The Friday, Oct. 30, event is for those who want to get festive and dress in period costumes from the 1500s through the 1700s.

A national association that tallies boat sales by segment came out with its annual report. It’s no surprise that people in 2008 bought fewer outboard boats, inboard boats, stern-drive boats, personal watercraft, houseboats and even sailboats.

But what about kayaks?

Summertime paddling belongs to Southwest Floridians – the waters are smooth and calm. Plus the Calusa Blueway identifies all kinds of shady creeks and backbays you can travel to stay out of the summer sun.

The Calusa Blueway Paddling Trail is hosting its second annual photo contest, “Shooting the Blueway.”

If you have an eye for photography, this is the perfect opportunity to capture the beauty of the waterways. Take a shot from your canoe or kayak on the Calusa Blueway in Lee County here along the Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel, and you could win prizes and possibly publication of your winning picture.

The Calusa Blueway can sometimes be a thru-way.

People who travel the Florida Circumnavigation Saltwater Paddling Trail find themselves along our Calusa Blueway coastal route as they travel from the Alabama-Florida line to the Florida-Georgia line.

And then there’s Boaz Frankel, who is crisscrossing America on his Un-Road Trip.

If you travel the blueway more than once, you likely become a bird watcher as well as a kayaker or canoeist. With more than 300 species of birds either passing through or living here, you just can’t quite help yourself.

The annual Top 10 boat names list released by BoatU.S. gave me an idea: Why not ask kayakers and canoeists what names suit paddlecraft?

Bunche Beach may be one of the last free-to-visit and free-to-park-there sandy slivers in Lee County. The preserve – officially called San Carlos Bay - Bunche Beach Preserve – is on the blueway, both on the Phase 1 map and the Phase 2 map. More notable, though, is its history.

The Calusa Blueway’s 190 miles conveniently meander by Lee County’s bird magnet – the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.

About a million people visit this refuge, which was named in honor of a pioneer conservationist and political cartoonist. The refuge consists of more than 6,400 acres of mangrove forest, submerged seagrass beds, cordgrass marshes and West Indian hardwood hammocks.

Oh, and the birds? Roughly 220 species use its habitat.